Water treatment plants for providing portable water in this country have traditionally used alum as a settling agent when removing solid impurities from raw water. The enactment and implementation of water pollution controls has given rise to severe problems associated with the disposal of alum residue from such plants. As a result, a recently developed alternative process for removing water contaminants may eventually replace the alum process. The alternative process, generally referred to as the clay-polymer process, is desirable in that the residue which is generated by the process has desirable characteristics as a soil builder and reconditioner and, as such, presents essentially no environment pollution or disposal problems.
In order to use the aforementioned clay-polymer process, it is necessary to wet substantial quantities of extremely fine clay powder with water. The water-clay mixture resulting from the wetting operation is then aged to swell and thus maximize the surface area and mass of individual clay particles before being injected into the raw water entering the water plant. A suitable polymer is subsequently injected and the raw water directed to a settling tank.
In practice, it has been found extremely difficult to wet the fine clay powder with water without excessive particle agglomeration. Such agglomeration tends to reduce the efficiency of the clay-polymer process since it effectively reduces the total surface area of the clay powder relative to a system where all individual particles of powder are wet and uniformly dispersed in the water.
It is, accordingly, a general object of the invention to provide a wetter whereby extremely fine powders may be uniformly and thoroughly wetted with liquids such as water.